


A Halloween Tale [*360-Degree Eye Roll*]

by rellkelltn87



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Barba Hates Halloween, Ghosts, Giraffes, Grumpy Rafael Barba, Halloween, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by A Christmas Carol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27054742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rellkelltn87/pseuds/rellkelltn87
Summary: After ADA Rafael Barba ruins Halloween for the SVU squad, he is visited by three spirits.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during an alternate Season 19.

“Sorry, little guy,” Fin said into his phone screen. “Grandpa’s got to work tonight.”

“Aww,” Rollins commented from behind him, looking over his shoulder at the six-month-old snuggled into a fuzzy pumpkin costume. “I’ve got a soft spot for babies dressed as pumpkins. And owls. And strawberries.”

“The ADA wants more evidence before he charges this guy we’ve been after for a long time,” Fin explained to his son and son-in-law, “and Benson thinks we have enough evidence, Carisi already came up with a solution, but ADA Barba won’t file until he gets what he needs.”

“So,” Rollins added, “nobody here is going trick-or-treating with their kids or grandkids tonight, thanks to Barba.”

“Even though we have enough evidence.”

“Barba’s a grump,” Rollins said.

“So Liv and Amanda’s kids don’t get to go trick-or-treating either?” Ken asked.

Fin snickered. “Carisi volunteered to take Jessie and Noah with his sister and his nephew.”

“Yeah, he’s really into —” Rollins started to say, but her thought was interrupted by the giraffe that walked into the squadroom. 

Carisi was dressed head-to-toe, except for his face sticking out of the costume’s neck and the hands coming out of folded-back hooves, as a giraffe. A baby giraffe, perhaps. 

Fin cracked up laughing and held up the phone so his son could see. The baby laughed along with his fathers and grandfather, baby giggles filling their corner of the squadroom. Rollins wiped tears from her cheeks. 

“This is the most hilarious thing I have ever seen in all thirty-seven years of my life,” Rollins said, her voice hoarse with laughter. 

Benson, hearing the commotion, emerged from her office. When he saw Carisi, she pressed her palm to a desk and doubled over, adding more laughter to the mix. “The kids will _love_ this.” She moved in closer to inspect the full-body giraffe costume. “You’re going to drive to Brooklyn with this on?”

“Yeah, the hooves are removable.”

“The hooves are removable,” Rollins repeated, sputtering.

Fin said goodbye to his son’s family and joined the others to surround the large adult baby giraffe at the center of the squadroom.

“Be careful,” Benson warned through peals of laughter, “Lennie Briscoe from the two-nine used to tell a story about how Halloween 1975, they were looking for a fugitive who jumped bail. He was never found but they wound up pulling over a guy on the Grand Central Parkway dressed as a pregnant gorilla. Story goes they never found their fugitive because they were so distracted by some guy driving a falling-apart green Nova while dressed as a pregnant gorilla.”

“’I’m very distracted by this sweet baby giraffe,” Rollins said, petting Carisi’s costume. “Send us video of the kids reacting when they see you.”

“I got you,” Carisi said, reaching a hand into a pocket in the costume.

“It has _pockets_ ,” Rollins said, “ _pockets_.”

Their laughter was soon interrupted by a stern-faced, dark-suited ADA whooshing in. “Carisi, I need —” Barba started to say, cutting himself off to examine the baby giraffe in front of him, somehow looking him up and down without moving his head, only his eyes. 

But Barba, unlike the others, didn’t laugh.

His expression grew more stern, his thin lips twisting into a near-furious expression. “We have a repeat offender out on the streets, no, worse, at home with his family, and you’re all playing dress-up?”

“No,” Benson said, “Carisi is taking Noah and Jesse trick-or-treating with his nephew while the rest of us stay here so you can get your warrant, which you could have already gotten on what we brought you.”

“And risk having the charges dropped on insufficient evidence? And risk —”

“You’ve brought charges on less,” Benson interrupted. 

“And then either had then dismissed or were forced to scramble for evidence before, or during, a shoddy trial.”

“He’s right,” the large adult baby giraffe sighed. “And we certainly wouldn’t want to set any more precedents for bringing up charges on insufficient evidence.”

“Fin, Amanda, and I have got this,” Benson promised. “And what about Carisi’s idea from this morning? What if we bring Pippa Cox and her CPS contacts in?” 

“It won’t work,” Barba insisted.

“I promised Noah and Jesse we’d take them to this block in Bay Ridge where the whole neighborhood gets decked out with lights and decorations, and they have the best candy. We’ll bring you some candy.”

“I can get two-pound bags of candy for my office on November 1st,” Barba sneered. “For now, I need Benson, Rollins, and Fin here, and I need Carisi with me at Centre Street to help me shore this case up. Our guy has dual citizenship in Ireland, keeps it up just for the purpose of fleeing jurisdiction if he needs to, so we have to make sure the charges stick like cement.”

The baby giraffe looked at his feet. 

“I’ll tell you what,” Barba said, “I’ll pay your nannies overtime tonight so nobody misses out on” — here he rolled his eyes loudly, if one could describe eye-rolling as “loud” — “trick-or-treating.”

“How d’you not like trick-or-treating?” Rollins asked. “You love snacks. You’re married to snacks.”

“Oh, yes, let’s carry over a delightful tradition from the 50s and 60s where children ring their neighbors’ doorbells, from a time when people thought you were much more likely to be assaulted by a stranger than —”

“Which is why kids don’t go trick-or-treating without adults anymore,” Rollins said. “It’s not unsafe. It’s fun.”

“And don’t forget about the roads, hundreds of kids crossing the street in the dark. And — _and _— you’re telling me that “Halloween” doesn’t remind any of you of the absolutely disgusting attitudes horror movies had towards children when we were younger?”__

__“Okay.” Benson held out her hands and moved closer to Barba, a sympathetic expression on her face. “Why do you absolutely, unquestionably need Carisi to work with you tonight?”_ _

__“Because he’s the only one of you with legal training.”_ _

__Carisi hung his head, and the costume hung its head too._ _

__“What is so funny?” Barba demanded at Rollins, who’d snickered at the giraffe head._ _

__“C’mon, Barba, do you really —”_ _

__“It’s more important that we shore up our evidence than we give in to what tv sitcoms tell us is a warm, fuzzy major holiday —”_ _

__“Warm and fuzzy,” Rollins said, patting Carisi’s costumed arm._ _

__“A warm and fuzzy major holiday that’s actually a bizarre appropriation of Catholic traditions from Latin America and Southern Europe into a celebration of creepiness. We’re here to protect people from creeps, not celebrate them. In any case, you need to work on this tonight, and I need Carisi.”_ _

__“I’ll call Lucy,” Benson sighed._ _

__“Yeah,” Rollins echoed, “time to disappoint a couple of kids.”_ _

__“They won’t care,” Barba snapped, “as long as they’re getting candy.”_ _

__“All right,” Carisi said, shrugging his shoulders from inside the costume, “let’s go.”_ _

__“Not in that getup.”_ _

__“Loosen up, Rafael.”_ _

__“Excuse me?”_ _

__“Every lawyer needs a baby giraffe detective with a JD by their side.”_ _

__“Give me a break. It’s not like it’s Christmas or Easter or Rosh Hashanah. This is ridiculous.”_ _

__When Barba and Carisi left together half an hour later — Barba waiting, exasperated, while Carisi took ages to remove and carefully fold his costume — Rollins turned to her colleagues and said, “what kind of asshole would make a baby giraffe sad?”_ _

__—_ _

__At ten o’clock at night, Carisi was still hunched over paperwork scattered across the round table in Barba’s office. “There’s nothing,” he said, exhaustion cracking his voice. “Squad’s got nothing either. Our best bet might —”_ _

__“He’s probably already fled jurisdiction,” Barba complained._ _

__“You don’t think we’ve already got that covered? There’s two unis outside the house.”_ _

__“Who can’t legally charge him.”_ _

__“I still think our best bet might be what I suggested this morning.”_ _

__Barba rubbed his forehead. “Convince me.”_ _

__“We arrest him bright and early tomorrow morning — what we should have done this morning — and ask a judge to hold his passport on the grounds we’ve already established.”_ _

__“The goal,” Barba said, “is to remove him from the home so the stepkids are safe. The mother’s done nothing to protect them.”_ _

__“Which is why I keep telling you to call Pippa Cox. Or did you want to do this on your own just so you could ruin kids’ fun on Halloween?”_ _

__Barba pursed his lips, a fresh sneer bubbling up. “Arrest him first thing in the morning. I’ll call Pippa. This had better end in charges that stick and a solid order of protection.”_ _

__“So exactly what I wanted you to do this morning.”_ _

__“You’re not the ADA. I am.”_ _

__“Exactly what I _suggested_ this morning.”_ _

__“Go home. Don’t forget your bag with the —” He pointed, drawing circles with his index finger in the direction of the bag Carisi had left on the office sofa. “The giraffe.”_ _

__“Yeah, well, too late now,” Carisi said, picking up the oversized bag by its handle. “I thought you were better than this, Rafael. You don’t like Halloween and I get why.” Before he continued, he stood over Barba’s desk and locked eyes with him, almost sympathetically, almost understandingly. “I get why, and I’m here if you wanna talk, honestly, but it’s not fair to shit on other peoples fun.”_ _

__“I wasn’t shitting on anyone’s fun,” Barba said, looking away, swishing his office chair back and forth. “You’re younger than me, but —”_ _

__“I’m almost 40, not like you’d be robbing the cradle,” Carisi said, flinching when he remembered where he was. “Sorry. That was really inappropriate.”_ _

__“You’re tired.”_ _

__“Yeah.”_ _

__“What I was going to say was, you’re younger than me, but the popular horror movies from both our childhoods were all either about children in danger or people being punished for successfully protecting children.”_ _

__“Not all of ‘em.”_ _

__“Not the point.”_ _

__“Like I said, if you —”_ _

__“Go home, Carisi.”_ _

__When Carisi was gone, Barba called Benson to update her on the plan, then texted Pippa Cox, hoping that the message would reach her before morning, unless, of course, she was at a Halloween party somewhere where grownups got drunk and made merriment out of the misappropriated sitcom-holiday that celebrated teetering on the brink of child endangerment._ _

__No, he realized, she was for sure home with her kids._ _

__Barba yawned and opened his rideshare app, finding no rides available, unless he wanted to share a car with drunk costumed twenty-somethings who would almost certainly throw up on his suit._ _

__He started to doze off in his chair, but was startled awake by a clanking sound coming from the faux fireplace opposite his desk._ _

__Must be heat coming up, he thought, noting the 90-minutes-til-November chill in the air._ _

__But then the clanking got louder, so loud that the overnight security guard surely must have heard it._ _

__Barba grabbed his coat and briefcase and rushed towards the door, only to find it locked from the outside. “Hey!” he shouted, but no one was there to hear._ _

__When he turned around to use his desk phone, he saw a figure emerge from the faux fireplace. He moved to dial 911, but there was no dial tone. No signal on his mobile phone either._ _

__The clanking got louder as the figure stood up._ _

___Clank, clank, clank._ _ _

__It was the sound of medals clanking against each other on a sergeant’s dress blues._ _

__Barba cursed out loud when he saw Dodds._ _

__Not Chief Dodds, mind you, but Sergeant Dodds, the man who’d been killed in the line of duty a year and a half ago._ _

__Good, Barba assured himself, at least this means it’s only a nightmare._ _

__“It’s not, Counselor,” the ghost said._ _

__“You’re a ghost who can read my thoughts. So a definite nightmare, Sergeant.”_ _

__“I’m here to warn you to change your ways before it’s too late.”_ _

__“Sure.”_ _

__“You ruined three kids’ nights over a problem that could have been solved this morning if you’d just listened to Carisi.”_ _

__“My conscience doesn’t sound like that.”_ _

__“I’m not your conscience,” the ghost said, his medals ringing out against each other as he turned back to the fireplace. “But, if you want to lose out on your last chance, then fine, go ahead and lose out on your last chance.”_ _

__“Wait!” Barba called, against his better judgment._ _

__Dodds turned around with more ear-busting _clank_ s. _ _

__“I get it, you are — were — a decorated officer,” Barba said, rubbing his temples. “No need to be so loud about it.” He took a breath. “My last chance for what?”_ _

__“During the next three nights, November 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, you’ll be visited by three spirits —”_ _

__“My last chance for _what_?”_ _

__“It’s your last chance,” Dodds said. “You’d better take it.”_ _


	2. Chapter 2

Barba was relieved to wake up in bed the next morning, messages from Benson and Pippa Cox waiting for him on his phone. He got dressed for work and went into the office, immediately filed charges against the man SVU had arrested at sunrise, pleaded with the arraignment judge to have his passport held until CPS decided what to do about the children, then worked with Pippa and CPS to ensure that the man’s stepchildren would not remain in his presence. 

“You could have done all of this yesterday morning,” Benson commented when they met in her office at the end of the workday. 

“It wasn’t the right time.”

“Hm.”

“Are you not speaking to me now?” Barba asked.

“I’m speaking to you. Noah’s not.”

Barba let out a snicker, but Benson narrowed her eyes in response. “That’s worse,” she warned. “Noah not speaking to you is worse.”

_This’ll all blow over in a few days_ , Barba told himself. After work, he had dinner at Forlini’s, enjoyed a good scotch, went home, hung up his suit and crawled under the comforter in his white T-shirt and boxers, relieved by routine, barely recalling the previous night’s dream about Dodds coming out of his faux fireplace or concerning himself with why he had no memory of traveling from his office to his apartment on Halloween. 

When he woke up, the clock radio on his dresser read 11:59 PM. He hoped he’d be able to fall back to sleep after what was essentially a catnap. 

“Oh, Rafa.”

His eyes shot back open when he heard Lieutenant Benson’s voice. He saw a shadowy figure in the doorway and wondered if — hoped that — he’d fallen back to sleep.

The figure flipped the light switch on, and there was Olivia Benson, dressed as if he’d interrupted her in the middle of a formal talk, in black pinstripe trousers and a longline blazer, oversized thick-rimmed glasses casting a focus on her face, a serious but somehow kind look in her eyes.

“Liv,” he said, his confusion unexpectedly getting the best of him. 

“I know you’re a little surprised since Liv isn’t the squad member you usually dream about,” she said, a smirk and a laugh on her lips. 

“Am I dreaming?”

“No,” she said, “and I’m not Liv. Remember how Dodds told you that you’d be visited by three spirits? I’m the spirit of Halloween Past.”

“So I’m dreaming,” Barba said, rising out of bed. 

“You roll your eyes a lot for a guy who’s being visited by spirits warning him about his last chance.”

“Last chance for what?” 

The spirit shrugged. “They don’t tell me anything.”

“Liv, I —”

“Not Liv, remember. The Spirit of Halloween Past. Stop rolling your eyes, Mr. Barba.” 

“Mr. Barba,” he said, a half-snort escaping his nose. “So how does this work? You’re going to take me back to one of the Halloweens when my father —”

“I’m not here to show you scenes you already replay in your mind all the time.”

Barba folded his arms. “So something lighter, then? Some time between 1977 and 1987 when the kids at school cornered me, the scholarship kid a head shorter than everyone else, and covered me with Silly String and eggs? Halloween in the 80s was _delightful_.” 

“Doesn’t seem like “light” material,” the spirit commented. 

“Was what passed for humor and fun back then.”

“That explains a lot. Anyway, come with me.”

“My mother says not to follow strange ghosts.”

“I’m not a ghost, per se,” she said, raising her eyebrows well above her glasses. “I’m a spirit.”

“Spirit, ghost, what’s the difference?”

“I don’t know, but English teachers always get on people’s cases about that and how the monster in Frankenstein isn’t named Frankenstein. Come with me.”

“Fine. Let me get dressed and —”

“No, no, no,” the Liv-spirit scolded. “The way this works is, visitees must be in their pajamas, or rather, whatever they went to bed in.”

“Can I at least put on pants?” Barba asked, suddenly realizing he’d been carrying on a conversation with a spirit who looked remarkably like his colleague while clad only in checkered boxers and a white T-shirt. 

“You should always sleep in pajamas, especially if you’re a miserable grump who hates one specific holiday.” 

“Shoes? Socks?”

“Nope,” she said, taking his hand and pulling slightly on his arm. 

He watched cinematic — or maybe tv-movie-like — streaks of gold and red and gray pass by as he clutched the spirit’s hand. He shuddered when his feet hit a cold hardwood floor, and when he opened his eyes, he found the spirit gone, and found himself standing in a once-familiar place. 

The common room of the building where Alex Muñoz rented a studio apartment in Washington Heights, almost a quarter-century ago. A Halloween party Alex had thrown to raise money for a bail fund. Lots of young local politicians milling about. 

“Harvard!” Muñoz shouted, waving Barba over. He put an arm around Barba and it became clear that the version of Barba Alex was seeing in that moment was twenty-five years old, likely in jeans and a button down shirt, unlike the other costumed guests. Alex, meanwhile, was dressed as Batman.

“Mi amigo, Rafael Barba, de _Harvard Law_ ,” he told the the folks gathered around him. “He’ll be a great asset to our campaign when we launch next year.”

Alex, as always, was playing the charismatic political wunderkind. 

“You’ll join us when you pass the Bar, yeah, Rafi?” he prompted. Then, to the others: “This guy’s got the greatest legal mind. Won him a free ride to Harvard. But he’ll stick around after he graduates and help us save CUNY.”

Barba pursed his lips and nodded. 

He spotted the Spirit of Halloween Past sitting behind a bowl filled with pretzels, watching him, her eyes sympathetic, almost like Liv’s. Very much like Liv’s, in fact, except she wasn’t Liv, and if he begged her to let him go home, she probably wouldn’t.

“Rafi!” he heard a woman’s voice call, and there was Yelina, waving at him from the opposite end of the room. 

Muñoz nodded, as if giving Barba permission to go over to her. 

Yelina threw her arms around him, the cape of her Superwoman costume draping both their shoulders. “You’re still anti-Halloween, huh?” she teased.

“Not completely,” he said, grabbing a mini-Snickers from a plastic cauldron on a folding table behind her. 

“You okay?” she asked, mostly under her breath. 

“Fine,” he lied.

“Are we okay?”

“We’ve been okay for the last two years. Nothing’s changed.”

“Thank you,” she said, patting his cheek. 

Barba remembered this moment. It wasn’t something that came to mind on a regular basis — he’d long since talked himself out of his romantic attraction to Yelina, re-conceptualizing her as an integral part of their friend group, two years after she broke off their short-lived pairing to be with Alex — but now, transplanted into the past, Barba remembered that this was when he’d noticed that Yelina was wearing an engagement ring. 

She called Alex over. “Why didn’t you tell him?” she said, playfully smacking her fiancé’s arm. “We’re all friends now, I thought, we’re all past the stupidity of two years ago.”

“I was just being —”

“Political,” Barba suggested with a smirk. “Congratulations to both of you.”

“Thank you, Rafi,” Muñoz said. “How do you feel about being my city council campaign’s brilliant legal representation and my best man?”

Barba nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said, “of course. You’ll be mayor someday, the only good mayor this city has ever had. That’s why Mami always told me to stick by you.”

He felt a hand on each of his shoulders. The Spirit of Halloween Past, a sympathetic look still written on her Liv-face, swallowed hard. In that moment he was glad that the spirit had decided to take the form of Liv and not a glowing pumpkin. 

“Time to go,” she said. 

“Thank God.”

—

When Barba woke up the next morning, he made one promise to himself: in the future, he’d make sure to drink a glass of water to dilute his dinner-whiskey before bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Barba’s “drink a glass of water before bed” resolution led to his bladder waking him up at 11:58PM. His bedroom and bathroom remained spirit-free while he peed, but he pulled on a pair of pajama pants before returning to bed just in case. 

As he lifted the comforter to climb back in to bed, he heard a voice behind him: 

_Bing bang bong._

What the —

An off-putting blond kid in a lab coat, probably thirty but still an off-putting kid, leapt into the room. “Mr. Barba!” he said. “Nice to meet you!”

“Stuckey,” Barba slowly read off the lab coat. He knew that name. Dale Stuckey had murdered two people, including a lab tech, and had tried to murder Benson’s former partner. The Stuckey incident had happened before his time with Manhattan SVU, but the creepy CSU guy was still talked about from time to time. 

“It’s just a getup. I’m the Spirit of Halloween Present.”

“Well, it’s not _presently_ Halloween, so you’re not needed here.”

“Aw, c’mon, Mr. Barba, you remember what Mikey Dodds told you about this being your last chance. I’m not saying anything either way, but —”

“My last chance for _what_?” Barba asked, hoping at least one of these insufferable supernatural visitors would be able to answer him. 

“They don’t tell me anything. You work it out with Ghost Dodds if he decides to come back. Are you coming with me or not?”

“Might as well,” Barba sighed. 

“Bing bang bong!” the spirit said excitedly, and with a snap of his finger and a puff of gray smoke, they were transported to Benson’s living room where Noah, Jessie, and Carisi’s two-year-old nephew Dom sat on the floor with Carisi, while Benson, Rollins, and Bella sipped red wine at the kitchen counter. 

“Can they see me?” Barba asked.

“Nah,” the spirit said. “In the present you get to be invisible. But you have to watch. Bing —”

“Please, I beg of you, do not say that again.”

“Your loss.”

Barba rolled his eyes.

“Uncle Rafa’s an asshole!” Jesse suddenly exclaimed with a delighted giggle.

Benson slapped a hand over her own mouth. Through gritted teeth, Rollins muttered, “Don’t laugh, or she’ll keep saying it.”

The adults, except Carisi, struggled to hold in their laughter. Carisi looked surprised, but not amused. Barba wondered why. 

“Honey, where’d you hear that?” Rollins asked. 

“You and Aunt Liv.”

Rollins and Benson exchanged a knowing glance. 

“Well, that’s a very mean word,” Rollins said. “Very, very mean. Mama’s sorry she said it.”

“Okay,” Jesse said, shrugging and turning back to the candy. 

When he was sure Jesse was sufficiently distracted, Carisi traded places with his sister, joining Rollins and Benson for a glass of wine while Bella supervised the last of the candy exchange.

“Can I take a piece of candy?” Barba whispered to the spirit.

“You gotta be kidding.”

“All right. Fine. No candy.”

“Mikey Dodds warned me about you. No snacking when we’re bending spacetime.”

“I mean,” Rollins said under her breath, “he was an — _asshole_ — to the kids and you on Halloween.”

“We had important work to do.”

“That he could have done in the morning if he’d just listened to you. They’re so mad, the kids, ‘cause they were so excited about what you’d told them about Bay Ridge.”

“Bella and I’ll take ‘em for Christmas.”

“Yeah,” Bella said from the living room, “the lights are spectacular.”

“I know,” Benson said, “and Lucy took Noah and Jesse around the building for trick-or-treating, but they were so looking forward to going to houses with decorations.”

“I think it’s time for certain giraffes to let go of their crushes,” Rollins said.

Carisi flipped her the bird.

“Hey!” Benson warned.

“Yeah, we don’t want Jesse picking up anything else that’ll get me a call from her nursery school teachers.”

“He hates Halloween,” Carisi said. “Give him a break.”

“It’s not about Halloween,” Benson said. “It’s about how he threw his weight around and undermined me as a commanding officer when if he’d just listened to you in the first place he wouldn’t have disappointed two kids and been a you-know-what.”

Rollins raised her glass. “We’ve got to find you somebody, Sonny. If I find you a cute lawyer will you stop defending Barba’s asshole — uh, jerk behavior?”

“There are ways, and I’m not gonna elaborate on how, but there are ways he reminds me of myself. It’s not about a “crush”.” 

“Sure,” Bella called from the living room, “it’s definitely not about his green eyes or how you always have crushes on people who are as smart as you.”

“Smarter than me,” Carisi corrected, and the women laughed.

“No,” Bella said. “You’re law school smart and you’re always reading and dropping thousand dollar words and you were gonna take those kids trick-or-treating while dressed as a giant baby giraffe, so there, you’re the better guy. You win the breakup.”

“Breakup? We were never together.”

“Still, you win the breakup.”

“Okay,” Barba told the spirit, “I get it.”

“You get what?”

“Uncle Rafa’s an asshole and Sonny Carisi is a sweet baby giraffe who, even if the crush was mutual, would never be with me because I’m an asshole.”

“Bing bang bong,” the spirit said, and Barba couldn’t help but roll his eyes. 

He woke up at dawn, curled up beneath his comforter. Another dream, he hoped. At the very least, if he really was being visited by three spirits, there was only one more to go. One more night, then he’d apologize to Noah and Jesse and find them really good Christmas presents. 

There was also the matter of Carisi. 

He could do something about that too, he thought, running through possible pretenses for showing up in the squadroom at nine o’clock in the morning.

“Just here to get the last of the evidence files from Sergeant Tutuola,” was what he told the uni who greeted him by the elevator. 

“Y’know,” Fin said, “we have couriers to do that.”

“I’m just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s,” he said, and now it was Rollins’s turn to roll her eyes. “Um,” he added, pretending to have just noticed that Carisi wasn’t at his desk, “where’s Carisi? In the field today?”

“Hawaii,” Rollins said. “I hope you’re not going to make him come back from his vacation.”

“He’s on vacation?”

“Don’t ruin his fun like you ruined his Halloween.”

“No, of course not. When did he leave for Hawaii?” Barba was confused, having just seen Carisi at Benson’s apartment the night before, but maybe he _hadn’t_ seen him in Benson’s apartment the night before, maybe was giving too much weight to a series of nightmares brought on by a bad decision that ruined everyone’s fun.

“He’s en route. They’ll finally get some time time to relax, him and Adam.”

“Adam?” Barba asked.

“His, uh, fiancé?”

“I didn’t know he was engaged. I didn’t know he was seeing anyone, to be honest.”

“I thought he would have told you,” Rollins said. “Adam’s an attorney on the EADA’s homicide task force. I’m surprised you didn’t know. They got engaged last month. We had a small party for them at Forlini’s and everything.”

Barba blinked, processing this new information. If Carisi was engaged to an ADA (an ADA who wasn’t him, he let himself think for a split second), then the events that the Spirit of Halloween Present had shown him couldn’t have happened. Maybe Stuckey was just a dream, like Liv taking him to the Halloween party where he’d first learned that Alex and Yelina were engaged, like Ghost Dodds appearing in the faux fireplace in his office.

“No,” he told Rollins, “Carisi never mentioned it. But when he comes back I’ll send him my congratulations and my sincere apologies.”


	4. Chapter 4

Barba briefly considered sleeping naked in order to troll the third spirit, but he was still unsure about whether he’d simply had a series of odd nightmares or was really being offered a “last chance,” whatever that meant, and that “last chance” might not be available to him if he preternaturally traveled naked through time and space. More likely, he decided, he simply felt bad about what he’d done on Halloween and his conscience was getting the better of him in his dreams.

Still, he’d felt strangely let down when Rollins told him that Carisi was engaged. Maybe he was surprised that Carisi hadn’t told him, since Carisi had confided in him quite a bit when he was studying for the Bar, when Barba had given up a few evenings of quiet solitude to help Carisi study. 

A relationship between the two of them could never have happened, though, not ethically: Carisi testified for Barba at trial. They’d have had to disclose before they even knew if the relationship was on solid ground. They’d have had to — 

The “had to” was not worth thinking about, Barba decided as he sunk into bed at 11, knowing he’d probably get less than an hour of sleep in before the next spirit arrived. 

“Had to”s and “what if”s were not worth his time because Carisi was engaged, in love, in Hawaii. That ship had long since sailed.

Tonight, he was not surprised when he woke up at 11:59 sharp. He wasn’t surprised by the rustling in the doorway, by Rollins standing over him in a nightgown, holding a single burning candle. 

“Can I put this stupid thing down?” she asked, setting the candle on Barba’s dresser without waiting for an answer. “It’s supposed to represent time fading away, the candle melting, or something, but it’s damn annoying. I need my hands if I’m talking to you.”

“I understand,” Barba said. “The first night was the Spirit of Halloween Past, the second night was the Spirit of Halloween Present, so I take it you’re the Spirit of Halloween Future?”

“Oh, no, honey, we don’t do “future” anymore. Future’s way too complex.” Her drawl was much more pronounced than usual, similar to the voice he’d heard Rollins use in recordings of undercover sting operations. “The big pie in the sky won’t let us touch “future” these days. I’m the Spirit of Halloween What Could Have Been. Come with me.”

She stopped when he lifted the covers. “Please tell me you’re wearing pants.”

“Yes, of course,” Barba said, standing.

“Last two guys I visited were not wearing pants. By your third night you’ve got to know to wear pants. I was ready to be transferred back to tooth fairy duty after that. So much easier, even if everybody gets grossed out by your collection of teeth. Let’s go.”

With a twinkle and a loud _whoosh_ , Barba found himself in a bar on the Upper West Side, surrounded by familiar faces and several large framed pictures of Carisi from his face-caterpillar mustache days. 

“Congratulations!” the crowd shouted, and Barba quickly registered Carisi entering, followed close behind by — Barba.

He was looking at himself. 

Carisi laughed, flattered by the attention, gave a quick speech about how happy he was to be SVU’s newest ADA, and then leaned down and kissed Barba full on the lips. 

The Barba at the front of the bar smiled. He was relaxed, at peace, full of joy, even. The Barba watching the scene unfold couldn’t remember the last time he’d experienced that sort of joy.

“Hey, now,” Rollins teased, “no fraternizing with judges.”

“He can fraternize with state family court judges to whom he’s engaged,” Barba said.

“You sure about that?”

“Sure as you’re my best person at the wedding,” Carisi told Rollins.

“Okay, enough about the wedding,” Benson interrupted. “Let’s raise a glass to Assistant District Attorney Sonny Carisi, J.D.”

“To Sonny, the smartest guy in the room,” Barba said, looking directly into his fiancé’s eyes. 

“What good is it showing me what could have been?” the pajama-clad Barba asked the spirit. “What good does this do me now?”

“Are you crying?” the spirit asked.

“I’ll never be appointed to the bench after what I did for the Abreus, and I’ll never — I’ll never have _this_ , so what’s the point?”

“You _are_ crying! Aww, you’re my first assignment who’s cried! I mean, I mean, look, yeah, point is, it’s too late for you to have any of this, but at least —”

“Take me home,” Barba told the spirit. “I’ll set things right with Carisi. I’ll buy him and his husband a nice wedding gift even though I won’t be invited. I’ll make things right with Liv, too, and the kids.”

“Okay,” the spirit said, leading him outside.

In front of the bar, they passed another instantiation of Barba and Carisi in the What Could Have Been world, leaving the party. 

Barba was gazing up into Carisi’s eyes. “I love you, my incredibly smart and brilliantly kind baby giraffe,” he said sweetly. 

—

There were tears in Barba’s eyes when he woke up. He showered, got dressed, then checked his phone for messages. He squinted when he saw the date at the top of the screen: October 31st. 

Compounding his confusion, when he stepped into the elevator, he saw the man who lived above him on the way to take his triplet toddlers to daycare, as he often did, but the three girls were dressed as owls. “What day is it?” Barba asked, and his neighbor laughed.

“We know,” the man said as they stepped off the elevator together into the lobby. “Nobody bothers Mr. Barba in Apartment 6D on Halloween.”

“No, really, what day is it?” Barba asked, and the three girls chirped “HALLOWEEN!” together.

Was it possible — 

He waited until the man in 7D and his toddlers left, then asked the doorman, “What day is it?”

“October 31st,” the doorman said. 

Barba had been given a second chance.

It was 8AM. He was going to use that second chance _now_.

He called Carisi, who was already at his desk. “Let’s do what you said yesterday afternoon. Pick him up. Meet me at arraignment court.”

“What’s with the sudden change of heart?” Carisi asked.

“Just meet me at arraignment.”

By 5 o’clock, their suspect was in prison, and the child protection and family court matters were being handled adeptly by Pippa Cox and CPS. This time, when Carisi came out into the squadroom in his giraffe costume, Barba burst out laughing along with everyone else. 

“Noah and Jesse can’t wait to go to Bay Ridge,” Benson said, “and now thanks to the quick work of our brilliant ADA and our equally brilliant giraffe, Amanda and I can join them, and Fin’s already on his way to go trick-or-treating with his grandson.”

“Hey Barba,” Carisi said, “can I talk to you a minute?”

“Sure,” Barba said, and they shuffled off to a corner of the squadroom together. 

“Just wanted to say thanks for taking me seriously. It’s hard to come by these days. And, yeah, I realize I’m thanking you for taking me seriously while I’m wearing a giraffe costume.”

Barba smiled. A tiny bit of joy crept into his heart. “Your fiancé’s a lucky person.”

“Fiancé? I’m single. Single as single-ply toilet paper, is what my sisters say.”

_A second chance._

“Look,” Carisi said, reaching out to pat Barba’s arm before remembering that he was a fluffy giraffe for the night, “I know you hate Halloween, and you’re allowed to hate Halloween, but thanks for not screwing it up for the rest of us. Especially for the kids.”

“Your idea worked,” Barba assured him. “You’re smart. You should come work for the DA. Your wits are better used there. And, since your sisters complain that you’re single, an added bonus, if you don’t mind my rudely saying, is that other ADAs could ethically —”

“Ask me out?” Carisi said. “Other ADAs could ethically ask me out now if I agreed not to testify for them until we see where it goes.”

“You —”

“I did my research.”

“How long ago?”

“A while.” 

“You’re a very smart giraffe,” Barba told Carisi. 

“You look kinda like a sad panda, though,” Carisi observed. “Go home and rest. Sleep. Maybe we can have dinner tomorrow night?”

“Yes. Dinner tomorrow night. Your choice, my treat. And tonight, send me pictures. I hate Halloween but I’m delighted by the idea of a large adult baby giraffe going door to door in Bay Ridge begging for candy.”

Carisi grinned. “Again, thank you for today.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Barba said. 

Halloween wasn’t so bad when there were second chances and baby giraffes and second chances with baby giraffes, Barba decided.


End file.
